Dolphins’ Coach and Kicker to blame for loss to Jets

The Miami Dolphins entered Sunday’s game with hopes of improve to 2-1 on the season. For a portion of the game, the Dolphins outplayed the Jets. BUT, crucial mistakes by the Dolphins coaching staff and former Pro Bowl kicker, ultimately cost the Dolphins that victory. Watching the game on Sunday felt like a roller coaster…but it felt like a roller coaster I’d been on before. The Dolphins once against managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. AND, like many other times, they did it to themselves.

Let’s start the festivities today, talking about Joe Philbin. Philbin is a rookie head coach and quite frankly, he’s making decisions ‘in-game’ that are hurting the team, not helping them. When Philbin was named Dolphins coach, Dolphins fans were excited because they knew that Philbin helped create the offensive powerhouse that was the Green Bay Packers. We thought the Dolphins would be an attacking, aggressive offense. Through 3 Dolphins games, do we still feel that way? What I saw on Sunday was a coach that was scared and a coach that played not to lose instead of trying to win.

Ryan Tannehill was not at his best today. He threw 1 interception and it was returned for a touchdown. Don’t coaches encourage quarterbacks to have a short memory and forget those types of bad plays? Apparently this coaching staff couldn’t forget it themselves. For most of the game, Mike Sherman and Joe Philbin had training wheels on Ryan Tannehill and relied heavily on their running game. We’ll get to that in a second. But after the Dolphins went up 17-10, the Dolphins playcalling was atrocious. The Dolphins decided to throw the ball 18 times and run it just 6 times in the 4th quarter, when they led the game. This allowed the Jets to eventually take the lead 20-17.

Tannehill, to his credit, made big plays when he needed to. He has to be more consistent, no doubt. BUT, he moved the Dolphins down the field for the go ahead touchdown, the game-tying field goal that forced overtime, AND into position for what would have been the game winning field goal. Tannehill faced a Rex Ryan defense for the first time and didn’t look great, but when he needed to, he led the Dolphins down the field.

The Dolphins got the ball late in the 2nd quarter and were intent to run out the clock. Instead of taking a knee, the Dolphins decided to run the ball with Reggie Bush. Reggie finished the day with 10 carries for 61 yards (6.1 yards per carry). Of course, Reggie was injured on his first carry, trying to run out the clock and would miss the rest of the game. From what we hear, Reggie will be okay, we suspect a knee contusion (bruise), but an MRI on Monday will tell us for sure. But, why would Philbin risk an injury to easily the Dolphins more important player when he was just trying to run out the clock? IT MAKES NO SENSE! (continued on page 2, click below)